Team Titles Revisited: 2008

2008 State Championships
By Jarrett Felix

It’s hard being the state title favorites. It’s much easier to be the underdog. In 2008, I witnessed this first hand as a part of the Upper Dublin Cross Country team. Over the summer, Upper Dublin, who was returning 4 of their top 5 from states, was declared the state title favorites. They had finished 2^nd at Districts and 5^th at states in their first appearance on the course. The buzz was mainly around their #5 runner and if they could find someone strong enough to help them hold on at Hershey.

Potentially Interesting Side Note: As a runner on the bubble of our varsity squad, I trained like a mad man over the summer to try and make the jump into our top 7, but it backfired and I ended up burning out over the summer and probably peaking in August. Plus, all the other bubble guys didn’t want to lose their spot either and everybody brought their “A” game. I ran around 17:20 that season and ended the year as our #11 runner. So I was a spectator in Hershey, but it was still a really cool experience to be a part of the team.

But while Upper Dublin was gearing up for a title run, the defending champions at North Penn were beginning their quest for a repeat. The Knights had come from completely off the radar in 2006, to an unstoppable title force in 2007. Led by seniors Zack Montijo and Zach Hoagland, North Penn dominated their early season invitationals while sophomore Brad Miles quietly rose into a star. At the state championships, North Penn stormed to a 17 point victory behind three state medalists. Hoagland and Montijo were the only members of the top 7 to graduate, but North Penn seemed to lack the front running on paper to maintain their gold.

And there was, of course, Coatesville. A year after winning the national championship, Coatesville graduated their entire top 5. But they still put together a strong 2007 and ended up claiming the silver medals in Hershey, just 17 points out of first. The legendary program seemed impervious to things like graduation and they were returning three of their top 4 runners from states.

When the season began, Upper Dublin looked like the pressure may have been getting to them. At the Centaur Invitational at DeSales, front runner Mike Palmisano lost his shoe and the boys were defeated by Holy Ghost Prep, a relative afterthought in the preseason rankings. Meanwhile, North Penn rolled in their opening invitational and, to make matters worse, they had a newcomer in their scoring five: Junior, Sam Bernitt.

This next part may sound familiar as it seems it happens every year: at Red, White and Blue, North Allegheny proved they were once again better than their preseason ranking. After PTXC left the Tigers out of the top 10 (they graduated their top 2 and a few other key contributors from the previous season), the Tigers beat North Hills, Lebo and Baldwin in impressive fashion in their opening invite. They placed their scoring five in the top 20 and had a very strong 15 second spread. North Hills held their own through 4 runners, putting their top 4 in the top 11 overall, but their #5 was just 49^th.

At the foundation invitational, Upper Dublin seemed to shake off some of the rust. In a rematch with Holy Ghost Prep, the Cardinals scored 86 points on the state course and grabbed the victory by 12. They placed 3 in the top 12 overall but did have a 74 second spread. On the flip side, 3^rd place Conrad Weiser had a 29 second spread, but no finishers under 17:10. But despite UD’s improvements, North Penn still managed to one-up them. The Knights finished just one-point back of West Windsor at Briarwood, a team that (spoiler alert) would go on to place in the top 5 at Nationals later that year.

The Cardinals would have their first shot at revenge against the North Penn squad at the Carlisle Invitational. The Invite was also set to feature the #3, #4, #5, #6, #9 and #10 schools in the PTXC rankings. It was an absolutely loaded race. However, the weather did not cooperate. Conditions were rainy and the course wasn’t running as quickly as the year previously or the year after. But the weather may not have been the biggest disadvantage Upper Dublin faced. After racing all out at Foundation the week previously, the Cardinals had nothing left for this meet (and neither did their counterparts from HG Prep). North Penn ended up putting 2 runners in front of their #1 and 3 in front of their #2. And that North Penn squad finished 53 points out of the gold medal position.

In a dramatic upset, the North Allegheny Tigers stormed across the course, placing 5 in the top 21 of team scoring and average 16:28 in muddy, rainy conditions with a 25 second spread. North Allegheny put all 5 scorers ahead of Cumberland Valley, who came in as one of the team’s ranked ahead of NA in the PTXC rankings and finished 3^rd in the meet. They were led by a sophomore, Ryan Gil, who finished 3^rd overall and one spot ahead of defending AA state champ Joe Beveridge.

Carlisle, the home team, also made a big statement. Senior Kyle Hurston shocked the stacked field by placing first overall with the only sub 16 clocking. His teammates John Pope and Davey Dennison also cracked the top 10, giving them easily one of the best top 3s in the meet’s history. That helped them claim 5^th overall in the loaded field, 4^th out of PA teams.

Cedar Cliff was 6^th, Upper Dublin was 7^th, HGPrep 8^th and LaSalle was 9^th. Henderson finished 16^th and the mighty Coatesville program finished 18^th.

Things didn’t get much easier for the pre-season #1 at their next invite. After Carlisle, Upper Dublin went to Paul Short to face off against PTXC top 10 teams Cumberland Valley, Germantown Friends and LaSalle. UD’s top 3 runners all placed in the top 20 and the team boasted a 16:18 average with a 48 second spread. But things were tight with Cumberland Valley who had a slim 34 second spread. A closer look at the score sheet revealed the Cardinals had survived to beat CV by just 5 points. However, they finished second in the final standings. Previously unranked Perkiomen Valley sprung a big upset, finishing with 4 in the top 25 and beating out Upper Dublin by just 2 points, despite the fact that their #5 runner was just 105^th. If Perk Valley could round out the #5 spot, they were suddenly title contenders with 3 sub 16 men on the roster and two of the absolute best in the state in Jimmy Tarsnane and Vince Perozze.

However, Perk Valley still had a long way to go to match the depth of the unquestioned top two teams in the state. North Penn rolled to a top spot at Salesianum and Manhattan (they took 1 through 4 in their section) while North Allegheny produced a 36 point score at the Tri State Championship with a 1-3 finish from Ryan Gil and Will Appman. At the WPIAL championships, against even better competition, the Tigers rolled to yet another victory in emphatic fashion. They scored 46 points and won the meet by 84 points with just a 30 second spread. Sophomore Ryan Gil ran under 16 minutes on the legendary Coopers course.

That left North Penn with a chance to make the last statement before states. If they were intimidated by North Allegheny they certainly didn’t show it. Against an excellent field, North Penn scored 110 points and won the district title by 50 points in one of the fastest ever meets Lehigh has seen. 34 runners broke 16 minutes and 100 broke 16:40. The top 6 teams each averaged 16:02 or faster for their top 5 runners, topped by North Penn’s incredible 15:47 average.

The darlings of Paul Short, Perkiomen Valley, barely survived against Lower Merion for the 5^th and final state qualifying spot (LM took 1-3 with Furcht and Berman out front). West Chester Henderson finished 4^th with a team of entirely non-seniors, Upper Dublin finished 3^rd and CR North came up for a surprise silver with 160 points. CRN’s top 4 runners were all at 16:03 or faster, a spread that will usually clinch a district title. But North Penn’s entire top 6 was at 16:08 or faster and they had 3 at 15:41 or faster in Miles, Bernitt and Brian Quintrell.

That set the stage for the state championship. North Allegheny was unquestionably the favorite, but the defending champions were a notable challenger. They had come a long way since Carlisle and were ready for the rematch. The fight for third had the potential to be interesting, but there was clearly a large gap from #2 to #3. Worth noting, District 3 had been fantastic in 2008 with Cedar Cliff, Cumberland Valley and Carlisle all getting significant time in the top 10 rankings. However, Conrad Weiser upset all 3 with a huge win at the District championships. They scored 60 points to defeated 2^nd place Cedar Cliff by 55. Maybe, they could be a sleeper team for a top 3 spot heading into states.

Through the opening mile, things were holding fairly true to form. North Penn was out to a strong early lead with 103 points, but North Allegheny was running well in second, their pack still bunched together. Conrad Wesier and CRN were tight for 3^rd and 4^th with Cumberland Valley, Upper Dublin and Perkiomen Valley also under 200 points.

Over the course of the second mile, North Penn’s advantage began to shrink. The Tigers were charging hard and their pack was rising quickly through the field, especially their top 3. North Penn sat just 20 points up on the Tigers (99 to 119) and Eric Balaban was just a few seconds back of the Knight’s #4 and #5 runners. Gil was running right on the heels of Miles as well in team standings, negating the front running advantage North Penn may have hoped to utilize.

The battle for third was, as expected, getting interesting. Perkiomen Valley, after finished 5^th at districts, was using their low sticks to full effect. Jimmy Tarsnane was in 1^st place overall, looking like he was heading for individual state gold and his running mate Vince Perozze was in the top 10 as well. Junior Scott Armstrong, however, was the hero through 2 miles. He had put himself in 32^nd place with a strong surge over the hills. Sitting in 4^th at 172 points was LaSalle College High School who had just a 14 second spread 2 miles in. CRN and Upper Dublin were at 197 and 202 trying to hang in there for a top 3 finish.

Over the final mile, North Penn proved they had the heart of a champion. On the first year of the Hershey course’s Poop-Out Hill, the Knights crushed the final 800 meters of the race and brought home 3 runners under 17 minutes including 7^th and 10^th overall. The addition of Sam Bernitt form the soccer team had been incredibly important as he was the team’s #2 runner and was worth just 5 points on the score sheet. The boys in blue had a final tally of 92 points and, unfortunately, North Allegheny had not been able to make it up on the final mile.

In fact, in a wild turn of events, the Tigers had fallen off the podium. LaSalle College High School, in the PCL’s PIAA State Championship debut, had pulled off an improbable upset. The team came in ranked #10 in the PTXC polls and was barely an afterthought prior to the gun. They had been 9^th at Carlisle and 4^th at Paul Short between a pack of teams that they turned the tables on at season’s end. LaSalle dropped from 172 points to 125 over the final mile and pulled their pack up the field to topple the heavily favorited North Allegheny team. Tom O’Kane moved from 40^th to 25^th, Sean McCullough moved from 58^th to 34^th, Nick Molloy from 75^th to 53^rd, Tom Trainer from 81^st to 55^th and Patrick Donnelly from 80^th to 58^th. All in the span of just one mile. It was an incredible display of pack running to beat the unquestioned best pack in the state by just 1 point.

Perk Valley collected 4^th place overall, scoring just 5 points from their top 2 runners. On the flip side, Upper Dublin finished 5^th despite having no runners in the top 20 for team scoring. The Cardinals, who had concerns prior to the season regarding their #5 runner, got a big boost from Sam Stortz at the final scoring position. He raced from 211^th at one mile to 167^th at 2 miles and all the way to 122^nd (just ahead of TJ Hobart) for a roughly 40 point swing in the team standings.

It was a tough day for the North Allegheny Tigers, but it made them stronger. After training for an extra four long weeks, NA took their first trip to the Nike Northeast Regionals. There, the team finished in 3^rd place in the loaded region, earning themselves a place on the line in Portland, Oregon for the National Championships. Ryan Gil, Chase Broussard, Patrick Morgan and Will Appman all placed in the top 30 overall with #5 man Eric Balban taking 38^th. Appman, after a disappointing states race, was perhaps the key to the team’s achievements on that day. They outscored North Penn 83 to 166 in the team standings as North Penn, despite a big day from Tim Stauring, had off days from their usual #2 and #3.

The trip to nationals for North Allegheny seemed like it should have merely been a celebratory tour. But the Tigers wanted to prove they belonged after getting an at large bid. They were disrespected in the pre race rankings, projected by some to finish in last place overall. But instead, the Tigers posted one of the best finishes by a PA team in the history of the race. They were 12^th overall despite the fact that their first runner was 43^rd in team scoring. Only 2 teams in the 22 team field had a front runner behind them. But a 20 second spread helped them jump plenty of teams and cement their legacy among PA’s best ever.